I am a Hero
The moon demons showed up last night and tried to turn the moon into caramel candy. But I played loud techno music at them and it disrupted their spells and chased them off.
For the first time, Rising Star was an out-of-town con for me! Thanks shrewlet for crash space. I have to say that the con seemed to go swimmingly from my perspective – every attendee seemed to have a good time, and no staff member melted down in my presence. Nicely done, rattrap! Next year I’ll bring more and cooler Decipher stuff.
I had fun in nius‘ skit, though watching the video yesterday, I was struck with a sense of “Did I really do that?” Hey – it got a laugh. Wonderful thing, stage buzz.
Zoomy Monday
A weekend of fighting entropy – we washed the car, replaced the battery in the car, washed clothes, unpacked more stuff, mowed the lawn, built more RTA furniture in which to store stuff. It was a productive couple of days.
This is an odd morning. Despite the fact that I slept poorly and the volume on the clock radio alarm had gotten turned down, I woke up on time and as clear-headed as I ever do. Got out of the house on time without forgetting anything (thanks to some timely help, traffic was even light, and the MP3 CD chose a nice Jean-Michel Jarre / Apollo 440 tune for my drive to work. I’m feeling good this morning. That worries me 🙂
You have to try out this link. It’s work safe, you don’t need to turn up the volume and wait for anything to scream at you, none of the weird Internet jokes here. This is just a funky / cool effect.
I want ten 1-yard lengths of PVC pipe and don’t ask
Contractors are using heavy power tools less than 25 feet from me as some remodeling goes on. Noisy only begins to describe it; at one point they were using some kind of pneumatic punch which made me jump 18 inches evey time it went off. This has been going on for weeks.
Today, I’m prepared – I have headphones and iTunes. I can still hear them, of course, but I can ignore them much easier. I think they know that, too; today they’ve decided to set off the building alarm 3 or 4 times for my office enjoyment. Oy.
Forged in the fires of Home Depot: While I was snickering, I couldn’t help but wonder if anyone still goes to “Toy Depot” to buy stuff for, you know, actual home improvement.
Finished “To Say Nothing of the Dog” last night. Often funny in a “heh” way, and an interesting look at a modern time-traveler stuck in Victorian England, but it was another example of characters dragged helplessly through the plot for a couple hundred pages. My own preference is for protagonists who get some kind of grip on things sooner or later.
Movies! Music! Games! Parties!
For the first time since moving here, my weekend return to Salem was marred by traffic delays in both directions, both at the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel. Neither time did I see an evidence of an accident – it was instead as if a claustrophobe had realized too late, “oh, I’m going through a tunnel!” and slowed to 15 mph, causing everyone for 6 miles back to have to slam on their brakes.
However, the Game Day / raininva‘s Party / Con Meeting / .Hack Session was lots of fun. Rain proved once again why she’s nearly indispensable to Rising Star, I demoed MegaMan, and Nick P. showed me a .Hack//Enemy deck which is no fun to play against :p I also got to say hi to a bunch of Blacksburgites who I don’t see as often as I did before the move – I might not be in B-burg again before Rising Star.
Despite reviewers’ best efforts, I have figured out the plot twist in The Village from reading reviews, just as I did in The Sixth Sense. The difference is that the deduction made me more interested in watching Willis and Osment, but I know I’m going to give this new movie a pass. Instead, rattrap nearly talked me into seeing Thunderbirds after all – at the very least, I can sit back and enjoy the CGI rescue vehicles.
Moving to Virginia Beach has certainly improved my concert situation. I saw a Chicago / Earth, Wind, & Fire doubleheader last month, and this month Blondie is playing a show less than 2 blocks from where I work. Yes, I am still all about the 80’s – if I can catch Duran Duran on their 2004 tour, I can check off two more bands that I always wanted to see.
Time to go fix another laptop…
Hand’s not here.
I’d like to echo sentiments posted by snidegrrl a few months back: morning radio, shut up and play some damn music! I don’t mind headlines, I appreciate the weather, I can even deal with sports scores. But I don’t want to hear your views on welfare, library fines, or your cute little call-in battle of the sexes. Play some music! It’s your own fault that I’m not listening to your advertisers – I waited for 10 minutes, but finally gave up and switched over to my mp3 player which never makes me listen to anyone’s opinion.
On the other hand, it’s a cloudless, low-humidity 70 degrees this morning, so the start of the day isn’t all that bad. And I finally fixed the space bar on my work keyboard.
One can play the Lord of the Rings CCG online, buying virtual starter decks and boosters and playing 24/7 against people all over the globe. The tutorial is free, runs on OS X and Windows, and it looked like an easy way to learn the game, so I downloaded it. I’ve played 10 games, and been wiped out every time. Am I just not any good at collectible games? Does my brain just not have the correct logic paths? I know I’m a newbie playing against a computer, but still I thought I’d have won once. Or maybe even just barely lost. *sigh*
Entry-level Tolkien fans, save yourself some time! The Silmarillion in 1000 Words Surprisingly accurate, too.
Downloadable music and costume changes
The iTunes Music Store is evil, especially their offerings of import albums unreleased in the US (or at least unobtainable in Roanoke). Authors such as Shonen Knife and Jean-Michel Jarre, to pick two *completely random* examples.
I’ve known for a few months that they made a live-action Sailor Moon series. I’ve seen an episode or two, and it’s entertaining if you have the odd brain structure necessary to be entertained by such things. (Yes, I do.) Now I’ve found out there’s a live-action Cutey Honey series being shot, and I have to wonder if they kept in the half-second of nudity when she summons a new costume. (“Honey Flash!” being both a battle cry and a cross-language pun.)
To Honore The Day
Instead of “Friends” and “Friend of” today my userinfo page says “Stalking” and “Stalked by”.
So now, for kittenchan, we will play that Clay Aiken stalking song for her. Afterwards, we’ll play “Every Breath You Take” buy The Police.
The Borgus MarsCon Report
I had the first glass of wine I’ve had in years. Honestly, probably the best-tasting, to my preferences.
The dealer’s room had the Callahan’s Saloon softcover (“Lady Slings The Booze”) I’d been missing, and the next Miles Vorkosigan I needed. I also discovered that FanPro’s Shadowrun supplements are a lot more expensive than the old FASA stuff.
Stayed up till 3am Friday for a dot/Hack//Enemy demo. I won, but then the newbie is supposed to win demos, so they’ll get hooked on the game. I’m very cautious about getting hooked on collectible games.
Only ate one meal Friday. I thought I’d outgrown that kind of con behavior.
Rain and I gave Jesse Braxton her Xmas present – a set which included figure of Lucy Lawless, as Xena, in the style of “The Simpsons”. It went over very well.
Spaz-quested for 30 minutes Saturday trying to remember where the nearby Wal-Mart was. (We never found it.)
Learned to play “Button Men”. Discovered that the game has a few game-balance issues, but at least I ended up with a pair of Dork Tower Button Men (my entry requirements) and another pair of general fantasy ones (a fellowship prize for not throttling the little kid I played one round against).
Had a lousy dinner in the hotel restaurant. That place is just cursed, I swear.
Won two starter decks and a box of boosters for dot/Hack//Enemy in the auction. Now I can build a few decks at a bargain price, and play some before I decide if I’m really going to get involved in this.
Enjoyed another good Caprizzio show – the vibrating duck was good for a laugh, though it got a bit overused.
Managed to order pizza at 2:30 am, thereby avoiding going another 24 hours between meals.
Drove home earlier Sunday than I really wanted, but not early enough to miss the snow. We counted 6 or 7 wrecks on our side of 81 alone, and there we a couple juicy traffic-stoppers on the other side.
Overall, a good weekend – I hope more of the folks around here can make it next year.
Ray of Light
So I’m driving home, listening to electronica on the car MP3 player, and I’m wondering: do its fans enjoy it as the sensible evolution of musical sound using the instruments of the 21st century; or because they’re a generation that has grown up listening to things beep and buzz at them, so carving music out of that is only natural?
I had a link once upon a time to a percussive piece composed to be played on a room full of dot-matrix printers – an instrument already vanishing into history.
Ever heard a tin flute dancing?
I fear that WVTF is about to play the entire Nutcracker Suite at me.
I like many parts of that composition, I’m not as sick of it as I am of some other holiday music, but I wasn’t planning to listen to the whole thing right now at work.
